Ron ‘Who?’ DeSantis News: ‘Of course’ Trump Lost the 2020 Election, DeSantis Says After Years of Hedging’; DeSantis Dances Around Federal Abortion Ban After Rift with Anti-Abortion Group; DeSantis Debate with Newsom is a ‘high-risk, low-reward’ Situation for Florida Gov; Mega-Donor Threatens To Cut Off Funding If DeSantis Doesn’t Go Moderate

‘Of course’ Trump lost the 2020 election, DeSantis says after years of hedging:

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said definitively that rival Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, an acknowledgement the Florida governor made after years of equivocating answers.

“Of course he lost,” DeSantis said an interview with NBC News posted Monday. “Joe Biden‘s the president.”

DeSantis has often sidestepped questions about whether he believes the 2020 election results were legitimate. But in recent days he has started publicly questioning the lies that Trump and his allies have made about the election’s legitimacy.

Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general said there was no credible evidence the election’s outcome was affected by fraud. The former president’s allegations were also roundly rejected by courts at the time, including judges he appointed.

Last week, Trump was charged by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith with four felonies related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

DeSantis‘ shift in rhetoric has come as he seeks to reset his stagnant 2024 White House campaign. Trump, who remains widely popular with the Republican Party base, is the early and commanding front-runner in next year’s GOP presidential primary.

DeSantis in his interview at first didn’t offer a clear answer when asked if Trump lost, saying, “Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner.” But he gave a more direct answer when pressed again. —>READ MORE HERE

DeSantis dances around federal abortion ban after rift with anti-abortion group:

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) wouldn’t say if he would endorse a federal abortion ban, a proposed policy that has become a source of contention for national anti-abortion groups who have pressured Republican presidential candidates to support such a measure.

DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban into law earlier this year that goes far beyond the 15-week abortion ban his fellow 2024 presidential rival former Vice President Mike Pence and others have championed. But DeSantis has stopped short of saying he would sign a national abortion ban into law if he was elected president, arguing instead that the issue should be left up to individual states.

“We will be a pro-life president and we will support pro-life policies,” DeSantis told NBC News’s Dasha Burns when asked if he would veto a nationwide abortion ban. “I would not allow what a lot of the Left wants to do, which is to override pro-life protections throughout the country all the way up really until the moment of birth in some instances, which I think is infanticide.”

DeSantis also stated in the interview that he “would not support any penalties on a woman” who received an abortion.

DeSantis’s stance has previously angered the national anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which blasted the governor last month. “A pro-life president has a duty to protect the lives of all Americans,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president. “He should be the National Defender of Life. —?READ MORE HERE

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+++++DeSantis debate with Newsom is a ‘high-risk, low-reward’ situation for Florida governor+++++

+++++Mega-Donor Threatens To Cut Off Funding If DeSantis Doesn’t Go Moderate+++++

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